Ross Township man fights to keep his land

Monday

Ross Township hopes to buy a Flyte Road property, deemed an eyesore and up for sheriff's sale next month, to clean it up and remove what it calls a stream obstruction.

Ross Township hopes to buy a Flyte Road property, deemed an eyesore and up for sheriff's sale next month, to clean it up and remove what it calls a stream obstruction.

Ruling in the township's favor, Monroe County Court last August ordered Rockne Newell, 59, to vacate and never again occupy or use the property, unless he has the proper permits to do so.

The township's efforts to take over the land he's owned since 1990 are the latest development in an 18-year battle against Newell.

"This is total (horse excrement)," said Newell, who has been living out of his 1984 Fiero and in abandoned buildings since being ordered to vacate.

"They have no right to kick me off my property. They call my property an 'eyesore.' When I bought it, it was one of only three properties on the entire road that didn't have what they call 'junk.'"

The unmown property now has the largest number of visibly cluttered items, including tires, cinderblocks and piles of lumber, on Flyte Road.

Unemployed for years due to an injury from a crash, Newell said he collects and uses items other people throw away, which is cheaper than buying items in stores, and scraps and sells what he doesn't use.

"I don't mow the property because I don't like lawns," said Newell, who has been struggling to pay property and school taxes after the mortgage was paid up years ago. "I prefer trees. Trees make the property less likely to flood when there's heavy rain."

The township's most immediate concern is with a culvert driveway Newell has installed on his property.

Newell said the Federal Emergency Management Agency told him to replace the footbridge with a culvert driveway wide enough to allow emergency vehicle access to the property.

He maintains that he was told by FEMA that he wouldn't need a permit to install this culvert driveway.

"We're not a regulatory agency, so it's not up to us to issue any permits," said external affairs specialist Josie Pritchard in FEMA's Harrisburg office. "Issuing permits is the job of the Department of Environmental Protection or local municipality, depending on the specific project."

Newell said he was having a contractor install the culvert in November 2011 when waterways conservation specialist Eric Weredyk of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission visited the property.

Weredyk told him the culvert was illegally being installed without a permit and threatened to arrest the contractor if the contractor didn't cease work immediately, according to Newell.

Newell said he told Weredyk that FEMA had said no permit was needed.

Weredyk then let the contractor continue work, but directed the contractor to install the culvert six inches higher than what state Department of Environmental Protection permit regulations allow, Newell said.

"Now, because of Weredyk's mistake, they're telling me the culvert blocks the stream's flow instead of letting it pass through," he said. "So now, they're not giving me a permit until that gets fixed, which I don't have the money to do. The contractor who was doing the work for me, when Weredyk came and screwed things up, is a friend of mine who knows I have no money and was doing me a favor."

The Pocono Record tried contacting the Fish and Boat Commission to speak with Weredyk, but commission Press Secretary Eric Levis said the agency does not comment on pending court cases.

"There are other issues with the culvert besides its height," said Victor Motts of the Monroe County Conservation District, which takes an interest when any construction on private or public property potentially affects waterways.

"Until those issues are resolved, the DEP won't grant any permits, and the culvert will remain in violation."

Newell invited the Pocono Record to his property to see his culvert. There appeared at the time to be no stream obstruction posed.

Newell then showed a culvert he said had been installed on a neighbor's property. That culvert at the time had debris including a large piece of concrete in it and appeared to pose more of an obstruction.

"Why am I being harassed for my culvert when this other one here is being totally ignored?" he asked.

Township Secretary-Treasurer Doris Price said the township does not comment on pending court cases.

"Mr. Newell was supposed to have gotten a DEP waterways and encroachment permit before even starting any construction on a stream project," said Community Relations Coordinator Colleen Connolly at DEP's Wilkes-Barre office. "He should not be doing the work first and then getting a permit. It doesn't work that way."

The township's other concerns with the property date back to shortly after Newell bought it from the previous owner in 1990.

Newell got a township permit for a storage structure he built. He then used the structure both for storage and as his dwelling, but had not applied for a separate zoning permit or certificate of occupancy to use it as a dwelling.

In 1995, after receiving complaints about the growing number of cluttered items on the property, the township took Newell to district court in efforts to force him to clean up and get a proper permit for the dwelling.

Newell appealed in county court, presenting the township's copy of his building permit application form. On the form's "building's intended use" line, someone had written "only" after "storage" so that it read "storage only."

The township employee who handled the application testified she and Newell signed the form and that someone else afterward must have put that "only" there, without her or Newell's knowledge.

Newell said this proved the township had not required him to get a separate permit to use the structure also as a dwelling.

Though Newell said Judge Peter O'Brien dismissed the case without prejudice and told the township to stop its harassment, township solicitor John Dunn said O'Brien told the township not to proceed any further unless it could prove Newell, in fact, was using the structure also as a dwelling.

Newell said he wasn't doing so and living with a friend at that time.

In 2009, after sheriff's deputies responded to another complaint about Newell's property and found human fecal matter in buckets there, the township determined he was improperly disposing of sewage with no septic system or permit for one.

Newell said he cannot afford septic hookup fees, uses a composting toilet and has never put human fecal matter in anything other than that toilet, but the township still requires him to get a septic permit.

"If I lose this property, I have nowhere else to go," Newell said. "What they're doing to me, what they've been doing to me for so long, it's wrong."

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.